Doing the (wood) Work Part 4

Round one of assembly.

Life hack: Have someone who is experienced help you out.

In relationships... do you think there might be times when you set everything up perfectly so all the pieces can go together just right? And even then you think you might screw it up? Yup.

Turns out woodworking is a lot like that.

We put one leg of the frame on going the wrong way. Simple thing and I still did it. Easy fix. Later, noticed one of the other legs was not set straight... the good thing about wood glue is that it works. The bad thing about it in our situation was that it works. Busting that up to reset the piece was a little rough. While we were busting it up, we dented the leg. I looked up at Dad somewhat horrified. And he Laughed. He told me it was going to get a lot worse than this. And how many times he has been sick from screwing up on a project. Needless to say, it's been a lot of work creating these individual pieces and I didn't want to have to go build a new piece.

But the thing is, is that was an itty bitty repairable mistake. The first phase of the bench was complete with only a few struggles and was a success overall. The realization I had was how much I didn't want to make a mistake. I didn't want to do the work again because I had put so much into it the first time.

That very idea or thought though is contradictive to what I was able to create having someone to help who knew what they were doing. Having a mentor's experience minimized my mistakes because they were able to teach me the right way instead of me having to redo something every time I made a mistake (which believe me there would have been a lot more). Having someone in my corner to help minimize mistakes helped more than I will truly ever know.

My Dad has put years of studying, learning, attempts, failures, and successes into this process. All up to the point where he had the experience, the tools, and the patience to work with me. One this reminded me how important it was to keep learning. My Dad probably didn't set out to learn woodworking with it in his mind to help me with this project one day. He didn't necessarily do it for me, but he never quit learning. He build a legacy for me without realizing it. By being willing to make mistakes and grow, he built a legacy. Decades worth of life are going into this chair.

To me, this chair is building a legacy. A reminder of what support looks like, that it's ok to make mistakes, that life is like a box of sandpaper, and that we never know what could one day create a legacy. <3 This chair will hold all of the lessons it has taught me so far along with the heart to our families land, the love of my family, and the hope of the memories it will bring. <3